Yup, mine had the plastic still on it too. IMO its a pretty dumb design by Honda. Kind of a pain to get at for a replaceable filter. I've seen it done so much better on other cars. Alas, its done. It does smell better too. Still a hint of must / mouse, but its much better.
The trip in to work today was quite nice. The transition to lean burn and back is quite a bit smoother. However, still not without any bucking. I'm still getting some when I'm at the transition point (~75 mpg). But, I was surprised how eager it was to actually enter lean burn this morning. Even with it being 20F out it seemed quite eager to lean burn. Previous to this it would take some definite coaxing. But, it had no issues at all going right into lean burn this morning. So, overall I would say it is a big improvement, but still needs some tweaking.
